Site Description

Encompassing six acres of Richmond’s downtown waterfront, The Locks is an exclusive enclave of residential and commercial spaces along the historic Haxall and Kanawha Canals, with the James River nearby. Just a 5 minute walk from downtown as well as the nightlife of Shockoe Slip, The Locks provides tenants the lure of urban living with recreation just outside the door. The property attracts both professionals and students, and boasts several restaurants as well as biking and jogging paths on the property along with canoeing and white water kayaking. There are a total of 9 buildings either completed or under development and soon to open.

The Situation

The Locks had an existing telephone entry system that was difficult to manage and wasn’t easy to expand. It was unreliable and its web browser interface often froze. In addition to wanting to swap that system out with something more user friendly, The Locks management also wanted to add card access control to more easily manage visitor and tenant access and provide an extra level of security not previously enjoyed by tenants, thus increasing the desirability and the value of the property for owner Core RVA.

The Solution

The Locks Management contacted Quality CCTV Systems to assess their facility and explain what was lacking and what was desired. Quality proposed an integrated solution from Keri Systems because they had success with it at other sites owned by the same owners as The Locks. According to Quality CCTV, “By using the Keri Systems solution here, not only did it allow us to use existing wiring, it also helps to standardize access control across the properties owners locations. Keri offers both access control and telephone entry that are managed by a single piece of software. Core RVA, is now using Keri Systems NXT access control platform on five separate properties.”

The NXT hardware platformfor access control was chosen by The Locks management because it is TCP/IP-ready and so cabling was minimized because controllers could be connected directly to the facility’s existing Ethernet. NXT controllers are spread throughout the property to accommodate the wiring from the original system. Connected to the controllers are thirty card readers that manage access to common area entrances. And using Keri’s NXT-4X4 I/O Expansion Boards allowed much of the system to utilize existing wiring from the previous system for bringing door functions (card reader, Request-to exit, and door position monitoring) back to the controllers.

The existing telephone entry units for visitor access were replaced by Entraguard Titaniums, such that there are seven Entraguard units located on the property. With Keri’s latest Doors.NET software release, both hardware sets are easily managed together in the same application. Tenant access privileges can be added or deleted at a moment’s notice, and their residences can be configured to allow tenants to call them via Entraguard stations located at main entrance points. The tenant can then “buzz the visitor in” by pressing 9 on their phone.

About Quality CCTV

Quality CCTV Systems, Inc., is a Virginia Class A Contractor, licensed through the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice as an Electronic Security provider (DCJS 11-1900), certified through the Virginia Department of Minority Business (SWaM) as a Woman-owned corporation and celebrating their 25th year as a full service electronic security integration company proudly serving customers throughout Virginia.
One of the main design factors for Quality CCTV was to reuse as much of the existing wire as possible to make the project affordable for the owners.

Results

The installation went in smoothly and on time, and the training provided by Quality CCTV was completed quickly. The property managers and leasing agents use the system to add new users and manage the cardholder database. In addition to electronic access control, system administrators can manually unlock and lock doors with a click of the mouse, and can run reports about all tenant and visitor access history.

The combined access control and telephone entry has more than met the needs of The Locks management requirements. It has already saved them time and frustration compared to what was previously in place, and they have already approved the expansion of the system to include the buildings currently under construction.